Journey in January

It as such a blessing to take these youth for the weekend. The theme was complicated, but had a lot of spiritual depth. The first day, they looked at the question “How are you?” and talked about how God genuinely wants us to talk with Him and answer that question. The next morning and afternoon, we talked about needs versus wants and how sometimes we get distracted by our wants. That evening we talked about how regardless of how we are doing or whether we are focusing too much on our wants, that God is always here, always cares for us, and al-ways forgives us. One way they demonstrated this was by placing a chain-bracelet on each person’s arm on the first night telling them not to take it off. Throughout the weekend, “charms’ that represent-ed sins were added to it. Then on Saturday night, they acted out the story of the thieves on the cross and then each of us went up, reflect-ed on our own sin and that it was what put Jesus on the cross, traded places with the thief and asked Christ to “remember us” just as the thief had. As soon as we stepped away from the cross—the chain bracelets were removed and the next morning were replaced with bracelets that stated ‘I’m here.’ It was a powerful reminder of Christ’s love for us and that He took our sins upon himself and now when God looks at us—he sees Christ rather than our sins. There-fore, we are no longer chained by our sins but have Christ in us.